1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic component module.
2. Description of Related Art
In recent years, in the area of electronic equipment such as information communication equipment, demands for reduced size and increased performance of equipment has been growing. Therefore, downsizing, high performance and high density mounting of electronic components housed inside the equipment have been realized. In addition, the electronic components are designed as a module for higher performance and higher density mounting.
An electronic component module containing a plurality of electronic components is mounted on a mounting substrate and housed inside the electronic equipment. In addition, the electronic component module is mounted on the mounting substrate by using a mounting machine, e.g., a mounter in general. In order to improve handling by the mounting machine, there is known a conventional electronic component module having a flat portion for a mounter head to suck and catch. Such an electronic component module is described in Japanese unexamined utility model application publication No. 7-42126.
Japanese unexamined utility model application publication No. 7-42126 describes a composite component (electronic component module) having an insulating plate (top plate) for forming a flat portion on a circuit board. This composite component includes a chip inductor, a chip resistor and an integrated circuit (IC) mounted on the circuit board by surface mounting. In addition, the above-mentioned IC is disposed in the middle region of the circuit board. Further, the above-mentioned insulating plate is fixed onto the top surface of the IC with thermosetting resin. Note that the composite component described in Japanese unexamined utility model application publication No. 7-42126 functions as a filter.
According to the conventional composite component (electronic component module) having the structure described above, the insulating plate is fixed onto the top surface of the IC disposed in the middle region of the circuit board so that the flat portion is formed on the composite component by the insulating plate. Therefore, the flat portion is sucked and caught by the mounter head so that surface mounting can be performed easily by using the mounting machine.
However, the structure of the composite component (electronic component module) described in Japanese unexamined utility model application publication No. 7-42126 has the following disadvantage. If the IC to which the insulating plate is fixed is mounted on an edge portion of the circuit board, the inconvenience occurs that the insulating plate is inclined due to an impact load of the mounter head in a suction catching. Therefore, in this case, there is a problem that handling performance of the mounting machine may be lowered. In addition, there is the inconvenience that a large load is applied to a fixing portion of the insulating plate or a solder bonding portion of the IC due to the inclination of the insulating plate. Thus, the IC is damaged, or electric connection between the IC and the circuit board is broken. Thus, there is a problem that reliability is lowered.
Further, if the IC to which the insulating plate is fixed is mounted on an edge portion of the circuit board in the structure of the composite component (electronic component module) described in the above-mentioned Japanese unexamined utility model application publication No. 7-42126, there is the inconvenience that it becomes difficult to fix the insulating plate for forming the flat portion stably to the circuit board. Therefore, due to this reason too, reliability is decreased, and handling performance of the mounting machine is also lowered.
Particularly in recent years, as electronic component modules have become high performance, the number of electronic components mounted on the electronic component module is apt to increase. Therefore, it is becoming difficult to mount the electronic component such as the IC to which the insulating plate is fixed in the middle region of the circuit board like the above-mentioned conventional composite component. Therefore, as the electronic component module becomes high performance, the above-mentioned problem is apt to occur.